Monday, March 25, 2013

Happy Monday! I'm sure some of you might not agree with me, but when you've worked the weekend, and you have Monday off, it is quite an awesome day! If you still don't think Monday is a day worth acknowledging, let me recommend you my friend Bianca's blog and her Motivation Mondays posts!

My own contribution to make Monday a better day will be a new cupcake recipe I finally tried last week and a new book series, so it's gonna be another Mix It Up Monday!

For the Monday Munchies part today, I present to you: Cafe Bombom Cupcakes!

I got the idea for this recipe one day at my bro's, I was grabbing something from the fridge for my sis and I saw this tube of skimmed condensed milk, and I was surprised that condensed milk was now available in skimmed version and in a "pour-easy" ketchup-like container, and my sis told me they bought it to make cafe bombon for when their friends come over. Now, I'm not sure how many of you may know what we Spaniards call "cafe bombon", the translation would be bombom coffee literally, but in essence it's an espresso with a shot of condensed milk (more or less depending on personal taste). That got me thinking into making Cafe Bombon cupcakes!

I used the coffee cupcake base recipe from the Cappuccino cupcakes from "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" (really, it's like my Holy Grail of baking!), used an apple corer, filled the whole with condensed milk (skimmed!) and then I had planned to use chocolate mousse to top them, but I didn't have all the ingredients, so I decided to use Cream Cheese frosting with a pair of added tablespoons of nutella for good measure!

They were quite a success with my co-workers on Wednesday night shift, I must say!

And as for the Mark This Book Monday bit, today I'm gonna be highly recommending you all a trilogy which final book came out last week: The Infernal Artifices by Cassandra Clare.

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/series/54144-the-infernal-devices

You might have heard about The Mortal Instruments series, also by Cassandra Clare, after all they have a movie based on the first book, City of Bones, coming out this summer. Well, this series is a prequel to that one, and on my very humble opinion as a reader, a superior one! I've loved The Mortal Instruments, and I started reading The Infernal Devices to go into the Shadowhunters world waiting for the last book on the TMI series that comes out next year, but once I started reading Clockwork Angel I was hooked for good!

Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince and Clockwork Princess. Each book keeps getting better than the previous one, and that is quite saying something. The plot keeps unravelling and deepening with each turn of the page, and we keep on discovering new information and getting new questions. The main characters, Will, Jem and Tessa are the first love triangle in a book that hasn't rubbed me off wrong at any moment, and their journey of love, friendship, loss and loyalty is amazing, the kind that makes you feel happy about humankind. But not just the main characters have that kind of emotional depth, it's something I have to say about Ms Clare, she knows how to bring their characters to life!

The trilogy is set up in Victorian times Great Britain, in the London's Shadowhunters Institute, and it begins with Tessa's journey from New York to London, to meet up with his brother. Tessa's journey to discover who and what she is will continue throughout the books and it is the key to the fight the Shadowhunters have against the villain in these books, a man raised by demons that want to take revenge on all Shadowhunters, since they destroyed his adoptive demonic parents.

All characters have their own demons to fight, emotionals or otherwise, and it's a story of companionship, loyalty and coming of age, and it's also a story of love, love inconditional and selfish and selfless love.

I can't really say anything else about the series without spoiling some of the plots, so I all I can add is: grab a copy and start reading!

I'm so in love with this series that I'm gonna be buying the hardcovers aside from already having the eBooks, I'm already waiting for an autographed copy of Clockwork Princess in the mail!

Eep! I read clockwork angel and agree that is even better than the mortal instruments series - and to hear that the infernal devices gets even better means i need to read the rest of it! Im happy they are making a movie from the mortal instruments but i kind of wish they would have done the infernal devices first. I really dig the victorian era and the lore clare pairs with it.